Healthcare

Amend KRS 304.39-020, relating to personal injury protection benefits, to modify requirements for certain medical expenses paid by a reparation obligor; amend KRS 304.39-130 to increase the allowable weekly reimbursement for work loss and other loss; amend KRS 304.39-210 to establish requirements for a reparation obligor paying medical expenses and a person submitting and collecting medical expenses; create a new section of KRS Chapter 15 to provide the Attorney General with concurrent jurisdiction in the investigation and prosecution of offenses under KRS 304.47-020; amend KRS 304.47-020 to conform; create a new section of Subtitle 47 of KRS Chapter 304 to require the insurance commissioner to publish an annual insurance fraud report; direct that certain provisions apply to basic and added reparation benefits issued or renewed on or after the effective date of the Act.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 218A to define terms; establish the ibogaine research and intellectual property fund to be administered by the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of allowing the department to enter a public-private partnership with a drug developer to conduct a clinical drug development trial or trials related to the use of ibogaine for the treatment of opioid use disorder, co-occurring substance use disorder, or any other neurological or mental health condition for which ibogaine demonstrates efficacy; establish requirements for the department related to how it contracts with a drug developer related to ibogaine research and intellectual property; appropriate $21 million from the opioid abatement trust fund to the ibogaine research and intellectual property development fund in fiscal year 2026-2027 and in fiscal year 2027-2028; APPROPRIATION; EMERGENCY.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 344 to ensure federal law relating to emergency medical treatment and the collection of evidence is not overridden; define terms; prohibit discrimination against health care professionals who decline to perform procedures that violate their conscience; grant health care professionals the right not to participate in services that violate their conscience; exempt health care professionals from liability for exercising these rights; prohibit hiring or licensing authorities from reprimanding health care professionals; require hiring or licensing authorities to provide complaints it has received to health care professionals; establish a civil cause of action for persons injured by violations; provide that the Act may be cited as the Health Care Heroes Recruitment and Retention Act; EMERGENCY.

Amend KRS 211.492 to define "advanced practice provider"; amend KRS 211.494 to allow Level IV verified trauma centers to utilize physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses who are supervised by physicians to cover emergency departments; require the Department for Public Health to promulgate administrative regulations to conform.